Hello. While I was on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, not Derek Jr., but soon to be Derek Jr. You can read all the entries here.
May 7
In my brief baseball commentary today, I looked at Oneil Cruz’s home run off Paul Sewald in Arizona, and the last three games of the Mets’ loss to the Rockies. Cruz really worked his way up, which was nice to see. It looked like a plate of eight. Sewald missed well inside on the first pitch. Ahead of the count, Cruz was sitting on a fastball, so when Sewald got a sweeper in the bottom half of the zone, he took it as a strike without blinking. Then Sewald made a big mistake, he left the sweeper in the dead center of the area. But Cruz was looking for a fastball again, and this time, he thought he saw it. He let loose so hard, so far in front of the ball that he didn’t even bother trying to reverse his swing to salvage some kind of contact.
The count was 1-2 and the rest appeared to be scholars. Cruz entered the game with a 34% fielding average. So did Sewald. Put it all together, and – forgive me if my math isn’t clear here – this scenario seemed like it would end in a strike about 240% of the time. But Cruz managed to throw a back sweeper that missed the corner by an inch or so. It was an excellent choice for the appearance of the plate. Two-two. Sewald got him to chase a fastball in an upward direction (and this one up to Oneil Cruz means up near the press box), but Cruz just got a piece. Sewald missed wide with another slider to keep the count full, then Cruz got another short on another fastball, this one at the top of the zone. It was a great swing at the plate, and when Sewald missed the third pitch at 3-2, Cruz had found his way to first. He doesn’t have the greatest eye in the world – three of these balls were too easy, and one of his swings was on the ball about a foot above the spot – but what more can you ask for than a patient approach early, one good take, one good mistake, and a brutal swing when he thought he saw his pitch?
In Colorado, Antonio Senzatela did his best to make it a 6-2 game, leading off and allowing one bloop to the second baseman. Then he settled down, striking out Francisco Alvarez on four pitches and MJ Melendez on three, before relieving a weak popout from Vidal Bruján. Melendez is now down to a 79 wRC+ this season and Bruján has a career wRC+ of 54. These may not be the Mets hitters who want to come to the plate in big situations, but that’s not my focus as I watch the inning unfold. My focus is on the girl in the pink jacket behind the right-hand batter’s box, and she’s focused on trying to figure out how to wipe her hands with a diaper:
You are not a FanGraphs Member
It appears that you are not yet a FanGraphs Member (or signed in). We’re not mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we’d like to point out a few good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Free Viewing! We will not mistake you for this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited topics! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles per month. Members are never cut off.
3. Dark mode and classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, the way you want.
5. One-click data export! Use our predictions and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove images from the home page! (Honestly, this doesn’t sound that good to us, but other people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. More Steam guesses! We have offer, percentage, and context neutral predictions available only to members.
8. Get the FanGraphs Walk-Off, a custom year-end review! Find out how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don’t fall prey to FOMO.
9. Weekly mailbag column, for Members only.
10. Help support FanGraphs and all of our staff! Our members give us valuable resources to improve the site and bring new features!
We hope you will consider Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize that this has been a very long marketing article, so we’ve removed all other ads from this article. We didn’t want to overdo it.
Baseball truly has something for everyone. Honestly, though, I’m in shock here. None of this I need to talk about with you. I mean, I enjoy watching Oneil Cruz do anything, and it’s always fun to watch someone learn about the magic of napkins, but we need to talk about something more important.
Two o’clock in the morning I feed my daughter. I’m typing this on my phone with one hand because I just realized that his pajamas consist of squat, heavy-set little mice playing instruments in a mouse marching band. I think they wear berets, because, I guess, French rats. They line up in twos and threes playing a pipe or a trumpet or a drum or a tambourine. One seems to be playing the lute, and now that I look closely, I see a triangle, maracas, an accordion, and one mouse that seems to be doing gymnastics. These rats are definitely French. But what gets me is that there is one mouse that plays the saxophone. That, my friends, is a bridge too far:
If you want me to believe that there’s a mouse playing a little trumpet, making a little noise with its little mouse nose, and belting out a mighty “When the Saints March In,” then sure, what the hell, I’d be right there with you. I can even swallow the idea of a mouse playing the lute with its strange paws. But I don’t want to believe that mice play reed instruments. Do you know how hard it is to play the saxophone? And who made these invisible reeds? You want me to believe that the mouse carefully wets the reed just the right amount before pressing it back into place and launching into a solo from “Born to Run?” I’m out! You have officially lost me. This world you have created is structurally unsound, and will collapse under its own blasphemous weight:
At the start of each procession is a mouse holding what is most likely a banner, but there is a 10% chance that it is not a banner and is, in fact, a large, crooked pair of scissors. I like what is possible better. This is not a marching band after all. This coming Death will carry his next victim to the world of the mouse. And in Mouse Land, Death is dressed up as an actor and keeps up with his friend Gary, who is currently going through a nasty divorce and is really having a moment of it. One night, a tough rat driving a beat-up pickup truck dumps a pile of bric-a-brac in what used to be a shared storage space in Gary’s driveway, and as he picks up the wreckage of his recently closed life, Gary uncovers the alto sax he used to play in high school. Gary couldn’t afford replacements or hair transplants, so he threw himself into his old rusty sack and everything he owned, then convinced his friend Death that maybe a trip to the afterlife was worth the class and dignity of some smooth jazz. It’s not going well.
Derek Jr. he’s fast asleep now, so please excuse me while I tuck him and his rat army into bed and try to get some sleep. Thanks for reading FanGraphs.
